Steve from Sage in Gateshead shares his learning from our Child Protection and Safeguarding course

“I attended the Child Protection & Safeguarding in the Arts and Cultural Sectors Intermediate Level Training session run by Artswork in October 2016 at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. At that point I was about to start reviewing our own internal Child protection policy and found the information and guidance extremely useful when updating our internal policy documents.

In particular I was able to update our Incident/Referral forms creating a format where there is a full report from our internal practitioner which then informs the referral decision by the companies Designated Child Protection Officer. This referral form also then includes information gathered form all other stakeholders including external organisations and schools. The training also highlighted for me the need to emphasise certain points that perhaps had not been stressed enough in the earlier version of our policy. These were;

• Remembering that abuse is not just what is done but also a failure to act.
• We cannot promise that ‘everything will be alright’
• I updated our indicators of abuse adding more information given to us at the training session
• We added some useful information regarding ‘why don’t’ looking at children / adults and their reason for not disclosing or reporting suspicions
• We added some useful information with regard to the use of social media looking at communication and the management of websites and facebook pages. This also included some advice on practitioners own online presence both professionally and personally.
• Though it is not a legal requirement we also added some information on child ratios.
• We added some information on ‘safe touch’ under the headings of necessary, permitted, clear and contextual.

I found the day extremely useful not only in terms of information but also as an opportunity to share concerns and issues with other colleagues from across the cultural sector. I would strongly recommend this course to anyone who has an interest in Child protection and safeguarding.”

– Steve Jinski, Head of Musical Inclusion and Designated Safeguarding Officer at Sage Gateshead

To find out dates of upcoming Child Protection and Safeguarding courses and others too, click here

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Professional Development